


the bluebell boy

by shell-heads (chocopies)



Series: Cap/IM Bingo [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Feels, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, can also be seen as 616 stony but is based on mcu stony, there is no established time period this takes place in so you can choose yourself!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 04:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14036319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocopies/pseuds/shell-heads
Summary: Steve has countless before's and after's, so many life-changing experiences he can define himself by; the serum, the war, Bucky, the ice. Eyes falling shut while his breath slows, wrapped in all the comforts of home, Steve adds another item to the list.After Tony is having a home to come back to, being able to lay in a cozy bed and hold one another easily, bodies a twisted and tangled mess when they press together in sleep. It's this, right here, Tony in his arms and cuddling close, his lips softly bruised from candied kisses and cheeks sore from smiling so widely.For the Steve who's known an incomparably cruel before, this is enough.It's everything.





	the bluebell boy

**Author's Note:**

> wrriten for the cuddling square on my stony bingo card, the title is inspired by how bluebells often represent humility, gratitude, and everlasting love!! a few people were also looking for something fluffy and wholesome after the fresh wave of angst that emerged from the second trailer,,,, so i rushed to finish it to quell the suffering lmAO

There are days when Steve can tell immediately nothing is going to go well-days where he wakes up and has to swallow down around the gut feeling that he reluctantly accepts as signs of oncoming trouble, prickly pines and curdling thickness roiling in his stomach. Other days, Steve wakes up to dappled sunlight streaming over the bed, warm skin flush against his, a hand in his own and legs tangling under silk sheets.

Those are the best days.

As he slowly drifts into consciousness, Steve lets a content brown sugar molasses drip its way through his veins and mellow him from the inside out with the knowledge that there's no better way to start a day than with the love of your life in your arms, smiling softly into the hand that palms his cheek.

"Morning," Steve rasps, smile widening when a thumb brushes over the corners of his upturned mouth right before he kisses the pad of the thumb in one of its downward strokes.

"Morning," comes Tony's whispered reply, his voice a high note of sky-bright affections.

Reaching a hand out to wrap around the one on his face as he blinks his eyes open drowsily, Steve smiles the picture of a man smitten when he sees Tony staring right back at him, golden skin gleaming in the fair light and eyes crinkled at the corners with fond folds. Pulling Tony's hand towards his mouth, he kisses the tips of each calloused finger before loosely curling the hand into a fist so he can peck the flat of Tony's knuckles, each kiss a blooming show of honeyed devotion that makes Tony flush with a sugar-spun line of happiness written on his lips.

Smile quirking in a mark of mischief, Steve suddenly yanks Tony by the hand in his grasp and turns onto his back so that Tony's forced to roll on top of him, a startled laugh wrenching itself from Tony's chest as Steve winds his arm around a trim waist and lets his love's firm weight settle above him. It makes vibrant flowers burst out of Steve's gleeful heart, bounding all over his chest and creeping into his arteries with budding vines ripe for blossom, pinks and reds and oranges flourishing like the sky at sunrise bit by bit under the adoring gaze of blue eyes.

Unable to hold himself back any longer as Tony's features twist with the effort it takes to contain his laughter, Steve leans in to peck sweetly at his smiling lips, once, twice, thrice-over and over again, and yet never enough for the yearning he carries in the hollows of his body, a constant desire to hold Tony forevermore.

"Good morning," Tony repeats again in between the slow press of their mouths, his besotted chuckle generating little sparks that jump over Steve's skin as calloused hands reach up to a fair neck and settle there for better leverage in the hold Steve refuses to let Tony out of.

"Good morning," Steve replies distractedly, focusing on kissing Tony senseless more than anything else, his hands a hot brand against the small of Tony's back.

"Steve," Tony mumbles into the scant air between them as he presses Steve further into the bed, leaning over him to lay properly when Steve hums, "I have to-I have to go to work."

Biting down on the soft flesh of Tony's lower lip just to see the shudder it rewards him, Steve affects an innocent beam that transforms into something unbelievably roguish instead.

"No, you don't," Steve informs him, arms a band of steel preventing Tony from going anywhere without a sprained back or attached super soldier. "Emergency mission to Ethiopia, can't be helped. Pepper says she understands."

"Steve," Tony tries to scold despite the laugh rumbling in his throat, his attempt proven even more futile when his voice becomes breathy from the languid kiss Steve reels him in for, hot and sensual and intimately tender as broad hands pull away from Tony's waist to hold his face, the simmering heat of Tony's cheeks lighting against Steve's palm like a low-burning fire.

"Tony," Steve huffs back exaggeratedly, pulling away to shoot him a petulant look, "shut up and kiss me."

Grinning helplessly, cheeks red as a rose and twice as beautiful, Tony does as asked. The room is quiet but for the small sounds of their lips moving against one another, their intimacy casual and earnest in the easy morning light that pours through the windows beside them. They never move onto something more passionate or aggressive, content with the feeling of their skin pressed together and their air passing into each other's lungs with each kiss; Tony opens his eyes, kissing Steve's lush mouth once more before moving onto his soft nose, his forehead, the corners of his hairline, peppering him in sweeping brushes of glowing reverence as Tony's hands reach to curve around a sharp jawline.

"Steve," Tony whispers like a prayer, a thanks, a promise, and Steve answers back in the same glimmering silver of worshipful awe, soaking in the feel of a body on his, a love returned seeping into his starved skin, his hushed voice striking something in the both of them that leaves them liquid-loose and brimming with the melted amber of cherished sentiment.

There's millions of words between them, countries and worlds of meaning ready to expel themselves from their bruising mouths; instead, the words travel like the saccharine drip of a syrupy marmalade, the taste of something citrusy and ripe hiding itself in the silky pour of their emotions as they kiss.

"Stay with me," Steve murmurs, thumbs brushing over Tony's temples gently. He's asking for this instant-this captured frame of satisfaction and home and all the things he'd never thought he'd have-and for all the moments to come, where his breath will be stolen by a fate he wishes it to never return from, a small price to pay for the ability to hold Tony and love him like this for days and months and years.

With a wide, sunburst-lit smile, Tony's eyes crinkle again with the same fondness that makes Steve's chest tight with a criss-crossing hedge of gratitude and longing, his fingers coming up to tilt Steve's chin as he presses a long kiss to Steve's brow, the shape of his lips branding themselves into the skin below.

"Always," Tony answers, his voice laced with more promise than any treaty or vow known to mankind. Heart a sharp drum in his ears, Steve feels a tingle begin from the tips of his fingers and spread until his every atom is vibrating with a level of endearment only Tony can ever garner from him, metal yellows of sparkling delight and creamy glinting pinks of every shade known to mankind in a complex, shimmering mixture of a love Steve would give absolutely everything to keep.

"I love you," Steve tells him achingly, his eyes a sea of blue yearning for words that don't exist to describe what he feels, throat so thick it threatens to choke him.

Tony, with his beautiful eyes and soft smile and world-changing hands, says, "I love you too," and Steve wraps his arms around Tony until they're one long line of heated flesh, hands intertwined and legs tangling with the sheets.

Tony falls asleep with his nose buried into Steve's neck, smile pressing at the jut of his collarbone and breath raising gooseflesh in its wake as they lay in the comforting circle of light the window deigns to envelop them in, his skin supple and gleaming enticingly over Steve's flaxen features.

Letting the touch of their flush skin sink into his bones chases out all lingering thought that isn't the swirling maelstrom of bold colors Tony induces in him; there's striking golds of a dear future just within grasp, dynamic oranges that echo his most vibrant memories of happiness, deep galaxy blues and purple formed from the ceaseless trials they've experienced together dotted with the glows of white wonder, spritely greens like the fresh shooting sprouts in a spring right after a harsh winter has left a land barren and almost certainly incapable of liveliness ever again.

Tony is all the colors in the world and more, full strokes and splashing blotches of different shades Steve'd never known had existed before, stories in the touch of his fingers and the lines on his face that make Steve's fingers itch for a pencil that will never be able to capture any of it.

The ice had been cold, a dark time without color or joy or life of any kind, 70 years of neverending awareness that something had happened and not being conscious enough to care. It had followed him out of the chilled waters of the ocean and snuck into the crevices of his war-torn body until Steve could hardly remember a time before the cold, living his every day with stones weighing his step and ice frosting over his lungs.

And then Tony came into his life. Tony, with his smile like quicksilver except in shades of buttered marigold instead. Tony, with a mouth that spills lies smooth as the finest wine and worth more than any jewel because of the precious interior it protected from harm. Tony, with his neverending fountain of love that he lavishes so dearly upon Steve despite all the reasons he could have chosen to remain hidden behind the safety of the painstakingly painted mask he offers others.

Breathing in the faint scent of grease and cologne, Steve gently maneuvers them so that Tony's sleeping form lies right in front of him, his left hand laying underneath Tony's precisely managed beard and right hand still threaded with strong fingers at their hips. As if he can sense the sudden distance between them even in his sleep, Tony's brow furrows slightly and he curls in closer, head bumping into Steve's muscled chest as Steve watches, helpless to the roaring waves of fondness that overcomes him and lifts his arms around Tony into a tight embrace. Scooting himself nearer, Steve dips his nose into the mussed waves of Tony's hair, the smell of sandalwood and rich smoke mixing with the grease and sweat of messing around in the workshop; it's a scent so inherently Tony that it leaves Steve inhaling until all the breath in his lungs has been filled with it, a cleansing wash of air that resembles the dissipation of smog as the sky opens up, robin's egg blue and perfect.

There were days, before, when Steve thought he'd never know what it means to be alive again, to feel the sun on your skin and a crackling fire in his heart. In those days, it seemed like all there had ever been was the cold, so much so that the cold hadn't even been noticeable because it was so constant, following him everywhere he went.

Now, with Tony by his side-in his arms, around him, on top of him, legs and arms and mouth pressing up and tangling with Steve's, it seems like a distant nightmare from a time far long off, an entirely different world he shudders to think back upon in a distant haze.

As he falls asleep with hands clutching at Tony and hair falling into his eyes, Steve thinks about the cold that doggedly chased his every step and open wound in sluices of freezing water, a weight he'd thought would be on his shoulders until the very end of his life.

Steve has countless before's and after's, so many life-changing experiences he can define himself by; the serum, the war, Bucky, the ice. Eyes falling shut while his breath slows, wrapped in all the comforts of home, Steve adds another item to the list.

Before Tony, with a heart that had never known a love so bright. When his bones were ice sculptures and the fire of a million suns couldn't temper his body into something less frigid and raw, when all he could think of was pain and hurt and how it never left him.

And now, after-when the world is so vivid and beautiful it blinds him, a shining canvas of color where he used to see life in shades of gray. Times and people have changed, but now Steve sees that it's not so much a reason to mourn the loss of his old life as it is to carry those memories as a source of strength into this new life. He can walk in the streets and allow himself happiness, learn to forgive himself for all the things he hadn't done before, all because there's a firm hand in his and a smile directed at him more precious than any shield or impossible strength could be worth.

After Tony is having a home to come back to, being able to lay in a cozy bed and hold one another easily, bodies a twisted and tangled mess when they press together in sleep. It's this, right here, Tony in his arms and cuddling close, his lips softly bruised from candied kisses and cheeks sore from smiling so widely.

They sleep, muted rays of sunshine falling upon them in a silky layer of creamy yellow blankets, hands joined and heads pressed together. Tomorrow, the world may need them, danger on the horizon as it tends to be-for now, though, they have this day.

And for now, for the Steve who's known an incomparably cruel before, this is enough.

It's everything.

**Author's Note:**

> if u see any mistakes or you'd like to leave constructive criticism, please do so!!! i write almost all my fics on my phone and miss things, so feel free to leave a comment along those lines or for any other reason as well!! 
> 
> come talk to me abt stony and marvel @shell-heads on tumblr!!!!!


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